Pages

Sunday, October 7, 2012

31 Days of Halloween 2012: American Scary

An appreciation by Bob Ignizio

Like many Northeast Ohioans, I grew up
watching horror hosts. Ghoulardi was a bit before my time, but I had
Hoolihan and Big Chuck (later Big Chuck & Lil’ John),
Superhost, and The Ghoul warping my mind with schlocky movies and
cheesy comedy sketches. Half the time the movies would suck and I’d
just be waiting for the breaks to come so I could watch The Ghoul put
Froggy into a blender or to see one of Big Chuck’s “Certain
Ethnic” skits. Other towns across America had hosts of their own,
too, each catering to the particular sensibilities of their region.
Of course this was before cable TV homogenized everything. A few
hosts still hang on, including Canton’s Son of Ghoul and Chicago's
Svengoolie, whose program is seen nationwide on ME TV, but for the
most part the tradition is fading.

The
documentary AMERICAN SCARYtakes viewers back to an era when local personalities could be
huge stars in their hometowns just by putting on fake beards or
vampire teeth and acting goofy. It begins in Los Angeles with the
original horror host(ess), Vampira, (later immortalized by her
performance in Ed Wood's PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE)
and then hops through time and space in an effort to convey just how
prevalent horror hosts were. Cleveland’s Ghoulardi and “Big
Chuck” Schodowski, New York’s Zacherle, and Bob Wilkins and John
Stanley of San Francisco’s “Creature Features” all get sizable
chunks of screen time, and deservedly so. It’s a real shame that
Elvira wasn’t interviewed for the film (apparently she was asked,
but never responded), and a little more on Joe Bob Briggs and
Commander USA would have been nice given their nationwide impact, but
overall I’m impressed at just how much is crammed into the hour and
a half running time.

If I have any complaint, it's with the
way director/editor John Hudgens has structured
his film, lumping hosts together into sometimes awkward
categories. A chronological approach would have made more sense to
me. Still, it’s nice to at least hear these people (some of whom
have since passed on) telling their stories, and to see clips of them
in their prime. There’s also no doubt that Hudgens has made this
film with a genuine affection for the subject, and that goes a long
way.